Generalissimo: May You Cower In Sheer Terror!!!

(for Isabel L. and Miguel)

You must shield your butcher's eyes
behind dark glasses: you who
most fear the rays of the sun's illumination.
Your face writhes with the fury of the Minotaur
(more of a visage of a beast than of a man)
as the World watches you spit... then jab...
the barbed lance of the matador
into the trembling heart of a lamb.

You who have so blithely resurrected
the ancient curse of snake worshippers;
You—high priest of a counterfeit cult,
orchestrator of sacrificial ceremonies,
haughty conquistador of innocent peoples:
Behind your scarred bullock neck
glistens the anaconda's cupric skin,
its flickering tongue, and crushing grin.

You—the supplicant and sycophant
of the putrid gangrenous flesh
of swindled black market greenbacks:
How seductively you are infatuated
with the redolent and succulent songs
of the bilious bovines in trench coats!!!
Eunuch of Gringos—the World knows you prod
your prey with a prick of electric prongs!!!

May you cower in sheer Terror—O Torturer! O Executioner! O Asesino!!!—
For no shock therapies will eliminate
the apparitions that haunt your temple gates:

THE MANGLED FISTS OF VICTOR JARA
STILL MAN YOUR MINES AND FACTORIES!!!
THE PULSING BLOOD OF PABLO NERUDA
NOW FLOODS THE STREETS OF SANTIAGO!!!

Professor and Chair, ICP Department, American University of Paris. Hall Gardner is the author of "World War Trump: The Risks of America’s New Nationalism" and a collection of poems, "The Wake-Up Blast."